MICHAEL HOWARD: We will start by cracking down hard on illegal immigration.

LISA MILLAR: If he manages to defy the opinion polls and oust Tony Blair's Labour Government, Michael Howard says he will pull the UK out of the international convention on refugees, set an annual upper limit for immigration and shake up the work permit system.

The bulk of the claims for political refugee status are pretty bogus. Most of the world is poorly ruled. Most of the world is poor. The bulk of the poor people who want to escape poverty, corrupt cops, and lawlessness are not suffering from persecution aimed specifically at them. They just happen to live in societies that are failures when compared to Western societies. If they are eligible for asylumn then so are a few billion other people. But letting them all in is crazy. Britain's rate of asylum immigration has grown literally by orders of magnitude in the last couple of decades and could grow by orders of magnitude more unless the government cracks down and puts a stop to it.

Tory strategists also believe that immigration is a key issue for many voters who deserted the party for the UK Independence Party in the European elections in June and whom the Conservatives must win back before the next general election.

Robert Kilroy-Silk, a UKIP member of the European Parliament, said Mr Howard had "plagiarised" one of his speeches earlier this month when he called for immigration to be capped at 100,000 people each year and pledged to withdraw from the UN convention.

"He is actually parroting virtually what I said," Mr Kilroy-Silk told Radio Four. "He has got to steal UKIPís clothes because we are stealing their votes."

There is a lesson here for the United States: A third party focused on immigration and the National Question could potentially force the two major US parties to shift their positions on immigration in a restrictionist direction.

Well, it has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Though one can doubt whether Michael Howard sincerely likes his own newly adopted policy position on immigration.

For his part, Home Secretary David Blunkett last year nailed his colours to the mast when he declared he saw "no obvious upper limit to legal [economic] immigration".

The British now have the luxury of choosing between 5 parties with three for differing levels of immigration restriction (Tories, UKIP, BNP), one trying to have it both ways (Labour), and fifth (Lib-Dems) probably in favor of continued high levels of immigration. Whereas Americans have a choice between two parties whose top leaders compete with each other for the honor of helping an influx of illiterate peasants ruin the country.

Both Canada and New Zealand, have an immigration policy that is based on "point systems."
These point systems, give numerical values to each diploma and job skill, experience,
younger age, etc. that the candidate possesses, and the final score determines the priority
of the candidate. The point system dramatically accelerates the immigration of highly skilled
people who are not only well motivated to improve the economy of their new country, but also
the fact that these people are in much better physical and mental shape, also genetically enriches
the country of immigration. At the same time, the point system dramatically slows down the
immigration of people who are politically, culturally and economically undesirables.

Addendum to my remarks about the point system: What I was trying to say is that
it is not the Immigration Cap, but the Quality of Immigrants that matters for UK or
the US. If one million Nobel laureates immigrate to UK, this would not be any kind
of economic or political danger to the country. But even one fundamentalist bigot is too many,
regardless of religion, Christian or Muslim, it does not matter.

Invisible Scientist wrote: "If one million Nobel laureates immigrate to UK, this would not be any kind
of economic or political danger to the country. "

Mr. Invisible Scientist, why do you suppose the British people would wish to become the servant class to a class of one million Nobel Laureates? Where will the avenues for social advancement for the indigenous British come from if the British elites can order up any old doctor or engineer they need from abroad? Where will the incentive be found to fix the broken down school system which is leaving young British adults with diminished life chances. The British elites know that no matter how much they cock up the provision of vital social services at home, such as education, they can make their mismanagement right by pilfering the best and brightest from India and China.

The British no more want to be ruled over by an alien elite than they want to suffer the ongoing depradations of an alien underclass.

One million nobel laureates is not possible in any case; there are only hundreds alive at one time. A numerical limit applies to the case of refugees only, if the number is high enough. The refugee convention should be scrapped; there is too much fraud. The fake cases outnumber the real ones by more than 100 to one, probably. The rich countries, avoiding the UN, should form an organization which pressures poor countries to take whatever number of true refugees, and who can be supported, then by private charity. Dictatorships and repressive governments will be getting established and overthrown. Therefore there will be some poor countries which have recently acquired freedom similar to what prevails in the rich ones. Those who only need refuge, can thus be taken care of, without the incentive of economic advancement arising simply from moving from a poor to a rich country. Pressure from the organized refugee-deporting countries can obtain locations for holding districts, by recognizing breakaway states which provide such land, by withholding of aid from client states, by trade boycotts against the products of an otherwise unwilling unprosperous, but unrepressive land, and by other means.

There is envy and hatred against successful societies, which is felt also by the leaders of those very same societies. Thus arises the impulse to import a large number of those who will bring their poverty-causing characteristics with them, if accepted as refugees. Some programs of social change are so destructive that only civil war would allow them a chance of being enacted. If refugees of sufficiently bellicose and malevolent disposition can be recruited from somewhere, this permits the increase in the prospects for warfare, sufficient to get the power needed to establish a dystopian project.

"" Mr. Invisible Scientist, why do you suppose the British people would wish to become the servant class to a class of one million Nobel Laureates? Where will the avenues for social advancement for the indigenous British come from if the British elites can order up any old doctor or engineer they need from abroad? Where will the incentive be found to fix the broken down school system which is leaving young British adults with diminished life chances. The British elites know that no matter how much they cock up the provision of vital social services at home, such as education, they can make their mismanagement right by pilfering the best and brightest from India and China.
The British no more want to be ruled over by an alien elite than they want to suffer the ongoing depradations of an alien underclass. ""

Most Nobel laureates are fairly modest people, and they would not become an alien elite that will enslave the
British people like the British aristocracy did. In fact, the British people owe their freedom to the German
Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg, who sabotaged the secret atom bomb project of Adolf Hitler. Heisenberg
became the director of that nuclear project, and intentionally exaggerated the actual critical mass of Uranium
in order to convince the Nazis that it was impossible to build the bomb during World War II. Read the book
"Heisenberg's War" by Thomas Powell. At the end of the war, the British arrested Heisenberg, and during
interrogation, he was asked why he said to the Nazis that the critical mass was about 1 ton even though
he knew that the correct amount was between 10 to 20 kg. Heisenberg answered with diplomatically: "That
presentation was adapted to the intelligence level of the current Reich minister." Heisenberg was referring
to Heinrich Himmler who had become his "friend." Heisenberg's father was professor of Byzantine Politics, and
so he was well qualified to swim with the sharks without getting eaten alive.

Immigration control has always been popular in the UK. I can't understand why the Tories have gone against their base and supporting multiculturalism all these years. The only explanation I can think of is a cowardly refusal to stand up to the fearmongering of the numerically small cultural elite who support the Third Worldisation of their country.

BTW Canada's merit-based system isn't all it's cracked up to be. Plenty of people get into this country and only contribute to the crime rate, the welfare rolls, and, of course, the re-election of the ruling Liberal Party.

The Tories implemented it during the 50s to make up for labor shortages. They defended it later on free-market principles. Now that they're looking at the electoral noose, their concentration has sharpened marvelously.

Don't you believe it.
The chances of the UK "Conservative" party actually winning the next election, are very slim, and if elected, the chances of them actually implementing these policies are zero.
In historical terms the record of the Conservatives on the immigration issue is even worse than that of the Labour party (which, at least is a socialist party committed to racial egalitarianism).
In opposition, the Conservatives when panicked by low poll ratings often mouth-off with proposed "tough" "no-nonsense" "controls" on immigration, but the familiar story of the past half-century is that you can rely upon the fact that net forign immigration will be higher after a "Conservative" term of office than before.

Perhaps, in the future, British political leaders will use the following argument: for public officials to divert public funds to the foreigner fits the definition of treason. Foreigners living in the country, who receive net public subsidy, are thus accessory to treason.

Mr. Down's wariness is more than justified. However, I think there are grounds for optimism here. Previously, the Conservatives could get away with blowing off their voters because there was no place for them to go. Both the Labour and Lib-Dem party were just too repugnant. Now with the UKIP they have a place to go. I believe that alone will tend to prompt a bit of honesty on the Tories' part.